I nearly knocked Jess's drink out of her hand once. We were at her father's Christmas party, listening to his new wife tell a story that contained neither a middle nor, it seemed, an end. Jess hated the woman, and there was no doubt Lorelai knew it. Jess couldn't keep still; the ice in her cup was shaking so fiercely I thought it might spill over the rim. She fidgeted like it kept her alive.
– Niall Horan, Girls I Loved, page 127
It's Saturday night and Mim is completely sober, a cup of ice water in her right hand and a blank expression on her face as she listens to one of Harry's mates talk about the football game he went to last weekend. Across the room, Cora sends her a pitying glance and a shrug.
Mim shrugs back. The bloke who's speaking to her doesn't even notice. She wonders if she could leave, as she didn't even have to come tonight. This is Harry's party, a celebration of a promotion at work, and Mim knows she could've easily made an excuse that would get her out of coming. Cora wouldn't have minded, especially because of what happened the last time she saw Harry.
Mim's forgiven Harry for inviting Niall to the pub, of course. But she hasn't told Harry so that Cora could hold it over him a bit, make him feel bad and get him to do the washing up a few more times a week. It's the least he can do, Cora figures, after he backed Mim into a corner like that.
"So what do you do?" the bloke asks Mim, realizing that she's not paying any attention to him. She looks up at him and blinks. He's nice enough looking, if a bit boring: he has the same haircut every other twenty-something bloke has, combed back and poofed up.
"I work for the Office of National Statistics," Mim says. She looks at him and imagines dating him, awkward hand holding and fumbled first kisses and going back to his flat, where she'll try to glean his life story from the items scattered haphazardly around the sitting room. The thought makes her queasy. "I work on data for the national census."
He looks confused. His name is Mike, she recalls. "The census?"
"You know, population data and the like." Mim shakes the cup in her hand, enjoying the sound of the crackling ice, and pictures the day she and Mike break up. They'll only make it three months, barely, and she'll let him down gently at a coffee shop, one far away from both of their flats so that he won't have to avoid it in the following weeks as he nurses his broken heart. "It's certainly not a dream job, but it keeps me afloat. What about you?"
Mike perks up. "Actually, I do a bit of sports journalism online, and I'm also working on..."
Mim tunes him out. There's only thing a bloke enjoys more than a blowjob is talking about his job continuously for several minutes. In about thirty seconds, he'll be so wrapped up in himself he probably won't even notice that Mim has stopped paying him any attention. She might even be able to walk away or swap places with someone with the same hair color and a similar height. And all the while he'll just keep talking.
"Mim!" It's Cora, putting her hand on Mim's shoulder. She leans down to whisper in Mim's ear. "Niall's here. Right behind me."
Sure enough, Mim looks over Cora's shoulder to the entryway to the kitchen and sees Niall walking through the arch, Harry beside him. Niall's grinning and so is Harry and even though Mim knew they'd stayed friends even after she and Niall broke up, the combination, the two of them together, the two of them happy, makes her feel upside-down. And he looks good, Niall does. The color of his shirt brings out his eyes, bright blue even from this distance. Mim can't help but stare.
Mike notices. He twists his neck around and spots Niall. "Who's that?" he asks.
"My ex," Mim says. "He's famous now."
Mike looks almost as confused as he did when Mim mentioned the census, and she leaves him that way. Maybe Mike deserves her politeness, but she doesn't feel bad for not giving it to him. She lets Cora take her arm and walk her out the back door into the garden. The wind bites against Mim's nose, making her pull her jumper tighter around her, but at least they're alone out here.
"Why didn't you tell me he was invited?" she asks Cora as the walk across the garden and stop in the middle of the lawn. They left the door open, and Mim swears she can hear Niall's laughter drifting out.
Cora shrugs sheepishly. She's wearing a hoodie, but instead of looking like a housewife, she looks chic, like a model on her day off. "I didn't think he would come. Not after you tore him a new one in that restaurant."
Mim feels herself growing red at the memory. She's tried to block that night out of her mind, which didn't prove too difficult, as tipsy memories are never the stickiest. But now it all comes rushing back: Niall's leg jiggling under the table and his snowflake freckles and I didn't tell you because I knew it was selfish. "I didn't say anything he didn't deserve."
"That's not what Harry said. Anyway," Cora glances at the door to the house, "I'm sure he's come because he wants to talk to you again. Harry probably told him you'd be here."
Mim raises an eyebrow. "Well, he won't get the chance. I'll go out the side gate, yeah? Give Harry my regards."
Cora opens her mouth to say something, but she's interrupted when someone steps out onto the patio. Mim can't tell who it is at first, as they're backlit, silhouetted against the house, but then they move further outside and she realizes that it's Harry. And right behind him is Niall.
"There you are!" Harry calls. Mim isn't sure who he's talking to until he comes over and swings his arm around Cora's shoulder. There's an open beer in his hand, and from the red in his eyes, it clearly isn't his first one. "Niall's here."
"I see that," Cora says, her voice clipped. "Niall."
Niall takes a careful step forward, and Mim squares her shoulders in preparation. "Cora. Nice to see you." He turns his head slowly, his gaze landing on Mim. "Mim. Hi."
"Perfect timing, Harry. I was just about to head out," Mim says, ignoring him and looking at Harry. She wishes she could shoot daggers out of her eyeballs at Niall, but pretending he doesn't exist will have to do. "Lovely party. Thanks so much for inviting me. Congratulations again on the promotion!"
"Than–"
Mim doesn't wait for him to get the whole word out before she starts across the garden toward the house. The grass is wet and it squelches under her tennies. Someone's following her (it's probably Niall; that's becoming a pattern) but she doesn't turn around. Inside the house, she turns right out of the kitchen. She just has to retrieve her bag from Cora's bedroom–
"Don't run away from me again, Mim!" Niall says, rounding on her as she turns into the corridor. He gained on her quickly, and now he's right behind her, close enough that he doesn't have to raise his voice. "Since when are you a coward?"
That's a challenge if she's ever heard one, and it's only because she's sober that it hurts as much as it does. She considers letting it go, considers ducking into Cora's room and locking the door securely behind her. But she's not a coward, so she turns on her heel and faces him. "You're the coward, Niall. Or have you forgotten? You're the one that ran away from me."
And then she turns and heads for Cora's bedroom. Niall follows her in, shutting the door behind him and standing in front of it. "I'm not running away now," he says.
Mim ignores him and sets down her cup on the dresser, swapping it for her bag . She doesn't understand what he's playing at, what he wants. It is his conscience, eating him away from the inside out? Is that it? He finally feels bad for what he did to her and now he wants to make amends so that he doesn't have to feel guilty about his fame any longer?
"Who's that bloke I saw you talking to earlier?" he asks suddenly.
Mim nearly roles her eyes. She can see Niall out of the corner of her eye; he hasn't had a sip of alcohol but his face is already completely red. "Mike?"
Niall shrugs. "I guess. So he's your boyfriend then?" He bends his knee and plants his foot on Cora's door as he leans back against it.
"How is that any of your business?"
"I'm just making small talk, Mim." He sighs like he's already tired of her. Doesn't he remember? He tired of her ages ago. He doesn't need to be making small talk with her. He doesn't need to be talking to her at all. And he certainly doesn't need to be blocking her way out of Cora's bedroom.
"I've just met him, actually. One of Harry's mates." She says Harry's mates like Niall ought to know him, if he really were one of Harry's friends too. As if it's some exclusive club that Niall doesn't belong to, because he's famous now. He doesn't need his old friends anymore, just like he didn't need Mim anymore.
"Well, he doesn't look like your type."
He's right, but she can't let him know that. "You don't get to have any say in that, Niall. You lost that right when you walked out on me."
Niall opens his mouth and closes it and opens it and closes it. As far as she remembers, he's never been one to be short of words, so it's a bit off-putting. Maybe today's opposite day and no one remembered to inform her.
"What is you want?" she asks, feeling suddenly exhausted. It's like Niall's mere presence has sapped all of the energy out of her body. She doesn't feel angry towards him now, nor frustrated or sad. She just feels tired.
"Mim, I'm sorry."
Those are words Mim never expected to hear come out of Niall's mouth, and they're enough to make her stop and turn around. She looks over her shoulder at him, at his body bent in half on the couch, his elbows resting on his knees and his hair, desperate for a trim, hanging in his eyes.
"What?" she asks, her voice too small, much too small for this moment, this moment she never thought would come. Anger crawls up from her toes, slithering up her legs into her tummy.
"I'm sorry. I want to say that I'm sorry." He clears his throat and takes a step forward. He moves toward her slowly, as if he's a hunter and she's a deer who might spring away if he steps too loudly. Instead she feels like a grenade that might explode. "I never said it. But I am. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I broke up with you like that. I'm sorry we never talked about it. I'm sorry I was so..." He pauses, and she watches as he turns words over in his mouth, searching for the right one. "Cruel."
Cruel. That's an understatement. That doesn't even begin to cover the way Mim's heart splintered in her chest when she realized he wasn't coming back, that they were really over. Up until that moment, she always assumed that the problems they were having were the kind that could be dealt with, laid out on a table and sorted into piles and tidied up. But she was wrong.
Niall watches her, waiting, and she watches him watching her. She turns over thousands of words in her head, searching for the right ones. The ones she settles on might not be right, but they're necessary.
"I don't care," she says.
"What?" Niall takes a step backward, obviously shocked. She doesn't know what he was expecting. Was she meant to run into his arms, declaring her love for him after all of this time? Was she supposed to apologize in turn, though, for the life of her, she can't remember doing anything wrong? She looks at him and realizes that doing either of those things would be a lie. She doesn't love him anymore, and if anyone hurt him, it was his own doing.
"I don't care," Mim repeats. "I don't want your apology. You can keep it."
Niall doesn't resist when she slips past him out the door.